My iMac is in for a logic board replacement and since this is the SECOND time I had to go in for a service call (1st was a bad HDD, which was probably really the logic board) I want to set up a way to make returning to the way i had it before the crashes as easy as possible. It's a pain to have to re-install everything, customize icons and wallpapers, all that good stuff.

My thought is to do this:

Get the iMac back, create a 100GB OS X partition that contains OS X and all my apps and my whole system tweaked to how I like it. The remaing drive space will be used for misc. things like downloads, current projects, etc.

Next I make an image of that OS X partition (IDK how to do this though..what app?) on one of my external drives (I have three 350GB externals). I WILL create a partition on the external drive that is specificaly for my OS X backup image, the other partition will be used for a time machine backup of the other folders on the remainder of my internal drive.

And finally, when and if my Mac takes a dump again, I SHOULD be able to restore from that image and put my Mac back to the EXACT way it was before the crash correct?

If this is correct can anyone suggest what app to use to create my image, and also what steps to take to restore from an image?

Step 3: Have Superduper! make a bootable backup image of your iMac's hard drive on a partition of suitable size on one of your external hard drives. Leave extra room if you plan on adding to the image.

Step 4: Periodically run Superduper! if you want to backup other apps etc that you added since your last backup. If you get the paid version of SD! you can set this up to backup automatically, and/or choose various ways of backing up your data. I personally think its worth the money.

Step 5: If you ever need your backed up image, you can either a) boot up from your OS X disk, go to Disk Utility, and Restore from the image you made. b) reload OS X, re-download SD!, and use it to restore your image.

You can set SD! to back up only what you want it to. You can tell it specifically which folders to back up if you like. With the paid version, you can backup in several different ways...

1) Erase the whole volume and make an exact copy of the volume you want to back up.

2) Change whatever is needed to make the backup volume identical to the original.

3) Copy only newer files to the backup volume.

4) Copy only different files to the backup volume.

I like option #2, which is called "Smart Update"

I'm not sure its completely necessary, but I like to have a separate partition to backup to. You can just decide how much space you foresee needing and make a partition, or you could just have a devoted drive with a single partition.

I myself have several partitions across 2 external drives...
One is a bootable copy of Leopard,
Another, copies of all of my Applications, mostly DMG files,
Another, a complete backup of my Mac Mini drive, which I update every so often,
And yet another, which has backups of all my Movies and Music, and other random files I want saved.

I then also have a partition for Time Machine, which I only have backup my Documents folder and my Desktop, for when I accidentally delete and trash an important file. If you let Time Machine backup your whole system, it will grow out of control like some alien cancer and fill your TM volume up in a matter of days.

Anyway, there's lots of ways to do it, but I found this system works best for me.

Aargh-a-Knot has given you good advice.
My advice is to use multiple Cloning App's.
Their have been times when SuperDuper
made flawed clones for me. Their were
times when CarbonCopyCloner had made
flawed clones as well.

I use SuperDuper, CarbonCopyCloner
as well as Mac's "Disc Utility, located
in your Utilities Folder in your
Applications Folder. Don't just make
one clone. Use SD for your 1st clone
then use CCC for your second, etc.,
etc., etc. I'm glad I did. I didn't have
to learn the hard way that clones aren't
always good. Yes I would boot and check
my clones BUT sometimes a bad clone
won't show it self right away.

What I do now is clone my OS to an
external HD, then boot from that clone
and run my system from that. Then
when I'm ready to make another clone,
I make it, then boot from that new clone
and run my system from it. That way if
anything goes wrong I'll know it and
can reboot into the original.

I apologize for being long winded
but my info is important to me.
If its not important to you then
just make one clone and be done
with it. A year ago losing my info
would just have been annoying.
Now it would be critical. Only
you know what backup/cloning
regimen would be correct for
you.

1. make your own time machine capsule cost effective easy to backup and restore.

2. firewire external hard drive backup with carbon copy cloner there for if the machine crashes you can boot from the firewire enclosure.

3. DVD backup Most expensive anywhere from 50.00 to 100.00 worth of disks

4. cd-rw backup even more expensive 100.00 to 200.00

What I Recommend.

building your own time machine capsule it's cheaper and you can get a 2 tb hard drive and backup every thing under the sun and when you transfer yourself to a new machine just plug in the external time machine capsule and tell it to restore from a time machine backup problem solved.